


Angels

by bangtanandbarisi



Series: To Build a Home [3]
Category: Law & Order: SVU
Genre: Family Fluff, Fluff, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-23
Updated: 2017-10-23
Packaged: 2019-01-22 03:13:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,807
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12472180
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bangtanandbarisi/pseuds/bangtanandbarisi
Summary: Rafael was absolutely certain that his grandmother had always been watching him from her perch above.





	Angels

**Author's Note:**

> Set in the "To Build a Home" universe. However, the previous fics in this series are absolutely not required reading to understanding this fic.
> 
> Beta'ed by the lovely ahumanfemale.

"Where are we, Papi?"

Elisa's nose was tucked tightly into Rafael's neck, little voice giving warm puffs of air to the skin on his neck not covered by the burgundy fabric of his scarf. Holding her, he crunched through leaves and grass, both wilting away with the winds of winter; a cornucopia of reds and oranges, yellows and dirt browns all beneath his loafers as they trekked up the worn path through the cemetery. 

"What are all those big rocks stickin' up? They look funny," she added, eyelashes tickling the underside of his chin. "Oh! Are they like sand castles, Papi?! Like when we build 'em at the beach with Daddy?!"

Rafael chuckled, squeezing her somehow closer to his chest as a particularly forceful gust of wind blew past, stirring up the leaves laid out on the ground in front of them. Her little nose was already going red, and he worried about a cold, knew Sonny would go full mother hen if he brought her home with sniffles after being out in what was sure to turn into a snowstorm.

He'd spotted homemade, Ma Carisi-style chicken soup bubbling away on the stove just as he'd emerged from their bedroom, winter coat and scarf securely fastened, a blend of spices and the aroma of slowly-simmering vegetables filling the air as Sonny had turned from his place stirring, a full-dimpled smile Rafael's reward for donning Sonny's favorite puffy parka.

"It'll be ready for you both when you get back," Sonny had whispered, and it wasn't the first time in Rafael's eight years of loving his perfect man that he had wondered what he'd done to ever deserve a life with someone like him.

Their little girl had bounded out from her room then, puffy jacket on to match Rafael's own (pink instead of black, her wide-eyed request), a picture that had made Sonny's cheeks go pink as she'd jumped into Rafael's arms and he'd lifted her to a hip, "I'm ready, Papi!" all she'd gotten out before Sonny had fit their lips and breaths together.

He reached over, chuckling, tugging Elisa's own, purple scarf up a little higher, so the wool at least covered her chin.

"You know, they do look a little like sand castles, don't they, conejita?" he asked, looking back to the path, rocks and dirt getting kicked up with each step. "But, those are actually called gravestones. Do you remember how I told you we were coming to visit an angel?"

Rafael waited until he felt the little drag of Elisa's nose, up and down along his neck before answering.

"Well, all of those big stones say each of the angel's names on them. Because God needs to know their names when he comes down to turn them into angels, right?"

"Yeah, it wouldn't be very nice of God if he didn't know their names, huh, Papi?"

Elisa paused then, picking her head up from her cocoon of scarf and shoulder, wide green eyes looking quizzically up at him. 

Sonny always said she was his twin when she looked like that, with her matching green eyes and dark brows furrowed in five-year-old concentration. 

He hadn't seen the resemblance himself until one morning when he'd been helping her get ready for school, brushing baby teeth thoroughly while Sonny toasted bagels in the kitchen. Elisa had insisted on being a "big girl" and standing up on the counter to brush her teeth beside him, so she could see her reflection in the mirror like papi normally did. 

So he hadn't argued -- a pouty five-year-old hadn't been on his agenda for the morning --  had wrapped a strong arm around her waist instead, had handed off her purple toothbrush with its bubblegum-flavored toothpaste on top, and watched, enraptured, as his baby girl stuck the bristles in her mouth, nose and eyebrows scrunched in concentration, a mirror image to himself in he and Sonny's bathroom mirror as he brushed beside her.

Once they'd both spit the flavored foam from their mouths, Rafael had brought Elisa to his chest, safe in both of his arms, kisses pressed to her smiling cheeks, and nose, and Sonny-styled hair. The shrieks she'd let out that early morning, so many weeks ago now, had been a symphony Rafael could've never dreamed of himself enjoying.

But then, that morning, with Elisa trying to rub her nose against his in between giggles, with Sonny in the bathroom doorway, having been relieved to only find the sight of his husband and their baby playing, it had been perfect.

With Sonny staring at him, head leaning against the doorway, that look in his eyes like he couldn't believe they were real; that soft look, that warm thing in clear blue eyes that reminded Rafael of being woken up with kisses to his chest, over his heart, because that's where Sonny lived.

It had been perfect.

"Does God know my name even if I'm not an angel?”

Rafael turned to face Elisa head on, making sure his expression was resolute even as wind whipped past them and struck his cheeks, skin burning at the touch.

"There is no way in this whole, wide world that God doesn't know who Elisa Rosalie Barba-Carisi is."

She smiled, all cheeks half-full and sparkling eyes with her covering of scarf and beanie, Rafael marveling at how easily her happiness fit beside his own heart, even when it was only a fraction of what she could normally give.

"Ya think God knows the silly names you call Daddy?!"

"What silly names do I call daddy?" He asked, the corner of his lip turned up in honest intrigue as they cleared one of the path's rounded corners. "They can't be anything sillier than bunny, I know that for sure."

The grass, brown and withering with winter's first touch, surrounded them with its sea of graves as they moved farther into the cemetery. It made no difference though -- Rafael would know hers anywhere. 

Tall and with smoothed edges, purple irises he'd brought the night before framing its base. He'd picked them out just as much for her as he had the little girl still chattering away in his ear, both their name and favorite color the very same. It was just another one of those little indicators that had Rafael certain that maybe, his grandmother had never intended to leave him alone.

"But Daddy’s a grown-up like you, Papi! And you call him  _ love!  _ And  _ baby!  _ Daddy's not even a baby!"

Rafael couldn't argue with the logic of that, even as he laughed and slowed down, his steps having now taken them directly in front of the engraved stone.

"Well, you are right about that, princesa," he murmured, quieter now that the wind had died down and he was standing with his daughter in front of his grandmother's grave. Rafael used a thumb to brush hair from her forehead, fuzzy from the cold, and moved forward to nuzzle their noses together -- one for the warmth it would bring Elisa's pinkining skin, and a second just so he could indulge in the happy grin Eskimo kisses always brought to her face. "But, Daddy is my love. Just like I love you so much, I love him so much, so you both have silly names in my heart."

Nodding, Elisa seemed to take the explanation easily, without her usual continued line of questioning --  _ But you're daddy's love, too, and he doesn't got a silly name for you!? _ \-- five-years-old attention span noticing what their walk had brought them to.

"Papi, why'd we stop at this angel?"

He kept quiet, shifting Elisa on the perch of his hip to make the angle he bent at easier on his back. The movement brought her closer to the headstone, to the intricate engraving that covered its face and spelled out the lifespan of the woman that he and Sonny's daughter had been named after. 

"Can you read their name, princesa?"

As soon as the words had left his mouth, Rafael knew he had earned the little hand that flew to her hip -- _ so much like Sonny, god _ \-- and the thoroughly offended squint of green eyes that followed, because  _ papi, as if _ .

"I'm in kindergarten, Daddy. I know all my letters."

And then Elisa rolled her eyes so dramatically as she turned away that Rafael felt a bloom of pride grow within his chest, and he knew he'd regret it one day, regret doing the same exact movement a thousand times over at both her father and defense attorneys alike, regret it when she was a mouthy teenager too sharp for her own good, arguing with he and Sonny about curfews for the library because she was just _ so much like him _ .

But right now, when it felt like she'd been made for them, picked out from the stars and sent down with the shape of he and Sonny's arms in mind, a smiling kiss pressed to the curls that had fallen loose from her beanie was the only thing that could capture what seeing his reflection in her little quirks did for the room left in his heart.

Elisa squinted a little, Rafael watching with a bemused grin as she began reading off the carved letters with the chest held underneath her puffy jacket jutted forward, strong and sassy because daddy had dared to question her authority on letters: "It says...E-L-I-S-A."

Her eyes widened then, little body falling backwards into the safety that the broadness of Rafael's shoulders gave, concern puckering her brows in the same way that it always did Sonny's, "Daddy, why's this angel got the same name as me?"

"What do you mean?" Rafael chuckled, his palm coming up to rest firmly on Elisa's cheek as he cupped her winter-bitten skin --  _ she was totally going to get a cold, Sonny was going to dump his body in the East River and make it look convincing because he was a cop who'd married a lawyer _ \-- and brought her closer. "Don't you remember who you're named after, silly?"

He watched as the gears turned in her little head, realization from behind green eyes widening and opening up her features. Rafael was absolutely certain he'd seen the look the night before, written across Sonny's face in shades of blue rather than green, when they'd been tangled in bed and Rafael had made a joke about "wood", murmured while nosing along the lean inside of Sonny's thigh, and it had taken his husband a full two minutes to get to the punchline in between open-mouthed kisses.

It was likely that Rafael's ministrations had something --  _ everything _ \-- to do with the slow reaction time, but he took the resemblance he saw of Sonny in their baby girl and ran with it all the same, tucking her impossibly tighter to the expanse of his chest.

"Papi, that's  _ your _ abuelita's name!" Elisa exclaimed, voice thick with wonder as she looked between Rafael and the gravestone, perched high in its patch of slowly withering grass. "That's abuelita's mommy!"

Rafael nodded along with her then, bouncing along with the excitement so clearly blooming in her chest as she wiggled back and forth in his arms and looked up at him with a cheeky grin that he was absolutely certain was one of the reasons he was alive.

One of two, really.

Because after Sonny had come to hold his whole heart, to be the meaning behind  _ everything _ , every movement, every twitch of muscle, every pounding within his own chest, he'd given Rafael their baby girl to do all the same. 

One look at Elisa, at the little miracle that was one half him and one half the man he loved, and Rafael was absolutely certain that his grandmother had always been watching from her perch above.

How else could he have ever found Sonny?

She'd pushed Rafael, not without making sure that he stumbled a time or twenty too many along the way, so that when he finally looked up and realized that the greatest thing he'd ever hold in his own two hands had always been willing, and wanting, and  _ waiting _ for him to just say  _ yes _ , he saw how stupid he'd been to let fear keep him from something he could love.

Like the day she'd finally pushed and let go on the back of his four-speed bike, sending Rafael free-falling along the uneven pavement in front of their building, but he'd still loved the way the wind had whipped past his cheeks and made him light and happy and  _ free _ just before his tires had caught in a crack and he'd tumbled to the ground and earned a scrape to the knee.

It was terrifying, and exhilarating in ways both intimidating and wonderful, and even while the fear of falling would settle heavy in his gut every time he'd stepped up to the bike after school, Rafael liked his chances more on it where he was sure he felt something like  _ letting go _ and  _ happiness _ for one of the first times in his young life, with his hair in his eyes and the sounds of the city around him.

She'd pushed now, too, and let go, and Rafael had fallen into Sonny's arms.

Terrifying, exhilarating in ways both intimidating and wonderful, Rafael didn't question his chances any more.

Sonny was it.

Everything.

The only thing Rafael had never second-guessed.

Sonny.

Their love.

Their marriage.

Their child.

The only other time that Rafael remembered feeling truly free was on that secondhand bike, with its chipped fire engine red paint and it's rusting wheels, and he'd still taken a moment's guess.

But then he'd kissed Sonny Carisi for the first time, and life was certain.

Devotion, and the gorgeous knowledge that he'd wake up to the same shade of blue fluttering open against his neck for the rest of their life together.

And even when Rafael wasn't certain of himself, Sonny's belief was enough.

After court, in stolen moments in hallways too busy for their closeness, in their bed after sex, when Sonny would run down the highlights of his closing argument in between heavy breaths and kisses that felt like faith, voice and tongue thick with an awe that Rafael could only accept with an open mouth and open mind.

Sonny had believed he'd be a good father.

Always, unequivocally.

Even when Rafael had spoken of bruises formed by the hands of his own, of nights spent underneath his bed when the fighting was too loud and the only solace he could take was the storybook his grandmother had given him for those moments when the walls were too thin.

"Focus on the words, Rafi," she'd said, "They'll get you through another night."

Sonny's words had been, "You could never, Rafi", and they'd gotten him through another day.

She was always with him, as she’d led Rafael to a man who could love him for the remainder of his days without her in just the very same ways that she had.

Rafael had been so afraid that life without his grandmother would be a winding track, a dizzying expanse of nothingness he’d disappear into when he inevitably lost his way without her hand on his shoulder to guide him -- how foolish he’d been to think she wouldn’t be directing him from above.

Unwavering, down a narrow path and straight into the arms of the only thing that had ever felt right.

Rafael didn’t question his chances anymore, not with an innocent smile still pressed flush to his cheek, and little arms wrapped around his neck.

Not with he and Sonny’s daughter tucking herself away close to his chest, because that’s where she was meant to be.

Safe, and perfect, and close to his heart.

Safe, and perfect, and close to his heart, where he kept all of the softer things.

His grandmother. 

Then Sonny.

And now, Elisa, too.

He felt sloppy lips at his cheek then, bitten dry with the cool temperature but still somehow slobbery in the way that only a kiss from a five-year-old could ever be.

“I love you, Papi!” Elisa said against the weekend stubble there, and Rafael turned his head just in time to catch her nose in a warm nuzzle; he it tucked away in that closed-off place for softer things, with her giggles catching on the winter air and a gloved hand wound tight in his sweater to keep herself closer to him.

“I love you, too, Bunny,” he whispered, finally turning back to the slab of concrete before them. 

He said a silent thanks to the woman whose name his daughter so perfectly bore before finding Elisa’s reddened cheeks underneath the sweep of curls her beanie had set loose.

“I love you so much, Elisa. And this angel, my abuelita? She loves you, too. She’s your guardian angel.”

**Author's Note:**

> Kudos and comments are, as always, greatly appreciated. <3


End file.
